Thursday, April 28, 2011

Collecting The Black Angels' first two EPs on a single disc, Another Nice Pair (LITA 066) stands as a potent document of the band's formative psych-rock sound. Presented as a vinyl "double EP," the A side (The Black Angels EP released 10/18/2005 as LITA 017) includes key tracks from the critically acclaimed debut album Passover (LITA 018, released 4/11/2006) in addition to the non-album jam "Winter '68." The B side flip presents the original Black Angel Exit EP (released 5/13/2008) which was available only as a limited edition bonus EP for those who pre-ordered the band's sophomore Directions To See A Ghost LP (LITA 033, released 4/15/2008). This side also includes tracks that were available only as bonus material on the limited edition 3-LP version of Directions To See A Ghost, in addition to the iTunes exclusive "Black Angel Exit/Shine," and a ripping cover of Black Mountain's "No Satisfaction."

Explaining the Phosgene Nightmare release, guitarist Christian Bland says - "’Phosgene Nightmare' is 6 more dreams recorded during the Phosphene Dream sessions. The 6 dreams were specifically saved as an epilogue to the full length album and help to complete the story that was presented thru the full length album. The 6 'nightmares' explore the poisonous side of life, if we lose focus on the light that exists in the darkness."

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

liner notes -
Ran into a small batch of Southeast Asian records at a thrift store this past winter. All dumb luck and good timing, the owner had dropped them off in brown paper bags an hour before I got there. It was hard for me not to get my hopes up þipping through them - the jackets seemed to indicate that I was really scoring. No dates, but they all looked late 60's/early 70's with psychedelia- meets-the-dance-floor cover art and "A-Go-Go" suffixes left and right...

Monday, April 25, 2011

Dengue Fever’s enduring love for an extinct period of Cambodian psychedelic surf-rock never weighs down its fourth album, Cannibal Courtship, but the band’s eccentric lyrical style sometimes does. “Cement Slippers” has a chorus with a New Pornographers-style keyboard hook—one of several welcome power-pop jolts on the album—hampered by verses that repeatedly fall flat as Chhom Nimol and a slop-voiced Zac Holtzman trade dull jokes about a couple having a shitty time together. The chorus of “Thank You Goodbye” (“you’re just another stamp in my passport”) can’t help but sound like a clumsy attempt to make another jet-setting love song like “Tiger Phone Card,” from 2008’s Venus On Earth. But when Nimol sings in her native Khmer and spreads her voice through the slow, eerie “Uku” and “Sister In The Radio,” Dengue Fever’s tiny corner of world music becomes deliriously entrancing again. The images of high-tech missiles on “Family Business” are just black-humored enough to complement the sinister cool of Holtzman’s guitar riff—they can pull off funny here and there—and Nimol’s vocal on the title track conjures Blondie as much as campy seduction. Cannibal Courtship once again proves that Dengue Fever is far more than tacky exotica, even when it can’t shake a few irritating personality tics.Scott Gordon, A.V. Club

Friday, April 22, 2011

Formed in 1992 by longtime friends Thorsten Benning (drums), Robin Rodenberg (bass), Reiner Henseleit (guitar), and Morten Gass (guitar/piano), self-described German all-instrumental "doom ridden jazz music" quartet Bohren & der Club of Gore was forged from a shared love of grindcore, hardcore, death and doom metal. Originally called simply Bohren (German for drilling), the band expanded its moniker in 1993 to reflect one of its biggest inspirations, the Dutch instrumental band GORE. In 1994, after the release of an eponymous 7" EP for Suggestion Records, the group put out its full-length debut Gore Motel, followed in 1995 by Midnight Radio, both of which appeared on Epistrophy Records. Henseleit left the band the following year, a move that resulted in the group's sound becoming even more brooding and minimalist. Composer and saxophone player Christoph Clöser joined in 1997, resulting in 2000s Fender Rhodes-heavy Sunset Mission. After a brief hiatus, the same lineup returned for 2002's Black Earth, 2005's Geisterfaust, and 2008's Dolores.James Christopher Monger, Allmusic.com

A compilation of 20 girl fronted bands doing 1 song each. Though most of the bands are in the punk / alternative / hard rock genres they don't have much in common other than that they're all at least partially female. Some of the bands suck and shouldn't be on any compilations whatsoever, while most of them are good enough to be treated like a real band rather than a novelty ''girl band'' act.MORE INFO

Monday, April 18, 2011

After Burnside's breakthrough recording TOO BAD JIM, he collaborated with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion in 1996 for A ASS POCKET OF WHISKEY, which merged Spencer's post-modern punk-blues with Burnside's gritty traditionalism. On the following year's MR. WIZARD, Spencer and company are present on only two tracks, but Burnside's Mississippi homeboys prove that they can rock just as ferociously on the other seven. As on ASS POCKET, MR. WIZARD's electrifying Chicago/Delta combo platter is amplified into an unerring sonic death ray capable of obliterating anything that crosses it's path, by virtue of its piledriving riffs and jackhammer rhythms.

Burnside opens the album unaccompanied, with a powerful spiritual tune, "Over the Hill." When the band kicks in, the guitars of Burnside and his disciple Kenny Brown interlock for an unrelenting assault that utilizes repeating patterns, cutting, distorted tones, and savage, maniacal slide work. Drummer Cedric Burnside (R.L.'s grandson) lives up to the task of matching all this electric blues fury with his simple, driving approach. MR. WIZARD is probably the best example of the controlled chaos that is an R.L. Burnside concert.

Although regarded as a 'jazz' album by virtue of its instrumentation (trumpet, saxophone, rhythm section, plus occasional harp and keyboards), trumpeter Mathias Eick's second ECM recording as leader is as likely to draw inspiration for his fluent, accessible compositions from pop and classical music as from jazz.
True, Jan Garbarek's 'plaintive cry' is cited as among the sources of one of the album's most striking pieces, 'Edinburgh' (Tore Brunborg featured on tenor), but other tunes have their sources in rock music: 'Oslo', for example, is discernibly influenced by Radiohead's trademark melancholic soar over assertively scurrying drums; 'Joni' nods to the great Candian singer/songwriter via the sincerest form of flattery by using her hypnotically compelling, long-lined verse structure – centred on Andreas Ulvo's rolling piano – as the basis for one of the album's standout tracks.
Eick's trumpet style relies, in his words, on an attempt to 'create a tone that was a mix of all the sounds I loved' (among his trumpet models are Kenny Wheeler, Chet Baker and Tomasz Stanko), and there is indeed a haunting purity in everything he plays, particularly when set, as in the album's closer, 'Epilogue', against the vigorous drumming of Torstein Lofthus.
There are moments on this attractive, immediately appealing album when a ravishing soundscape (cf. another recent ECM album featuring Brunborg, Manu Katché's Third Round) cannot quite compensate for the lack of two of jazz's (arguably) defining features, grit and unpredictability, but overall, Eick admirers will find Skala irresistibly seductive. ~ Chris Parker

While Australian pop-psych act The Dolly Rocker Movement’s name might be a Syd Barrett reference, their sound leans heavier on another British mystic of the period. It makes sense: Marc Bolan dug Barrett, too. And these guys might be the best T-Rex update ever. If singer Daniel Poulter comes across a little too accurately as that long lost elf of glitter and smoke, it comes off as more homage than impression. After all, Bolan has been dead for 30 years. It’s about time somebody took a swing at his particular brand of glam and psychedelia as well as these guys have- unabashedly song-friendly, full of hooks and anthemic choruses, with the occasional detour into the truly haunting or straight up bad-ass.

Whether your devotion is to doom or destiny, the Phantom of the Black Hills will take you into a world where banjo pickers moonlight as murderers and a wanton fiddler takes his hat off to no one. On the follow-up to acclaimed debut Ghosts, each song is a roll of the bones. Whether you call it Hellbilly, Doom-Country, or Cowpunk, listen to Born To Gun for yourself and you ll know you ve never heard anything like it before...